L is for ability

Love. What is it? What is this thing that poets and musicians, novelists and artists of all kinds are compelled to write, speak, dance, and sing about? I’ve heard this word, ‘love’, as a salutation to end a conversation. I often hear the words ‘I love you…’ in a tone that is like a request for affectionate reciprocation – a slight lingering at the end, a breathe waiting for an echo, a reply. What is love? I can remember wanting to hear it often, believing that if “I Love You” is said, then love exists, and if those words are not expressed, love is absent. I used to think that if it was not said to me by those I admired, it naturally meant that I had not yet earned the love I was seeking, that something was wrong with me and I had only to do something, everything, to please other, and then I would earn love. After spending much time alone this past year, I’m no longer bothered not to hear it. In fact, my comfort zone is not to hear it. I suspect I would feel confused, if not afraid, if I had to deal with an expression of love.

Love, its ambiguity and fame, keeps me wondering, “Where does it go when it leaves?”

While many women my age are out looking for a husband or sleeping with one, I watched a tv movie on this lovely saturday evening, called “13 going on 30”. Oh to have magical wishing dust to sprinkle on me while I time travel to a different state of body and mind; a state where I have a circle of friends who mutually seek out the company of each other on a weekly basis out of joy to play and spend time together. Only 20 years ago a swing set, a magazine and a fruit roll-up shared with a friend was a simple formula for fun. As a result the other awkward and uncomfortable experiences of that age, I also couldn’t wait to be 25. I mistakenly estimated that by age 25, I’d be all grown up with a job, happy and thriving. When I turned 16, I became wiser to my pace of development and moved the target age of “happy and thriving” to 30. Somewhere, (my departure from New York City is always suspect), I regressed. I may be in a state of perpetual adolescence, only without the fiery passion that made the awkward teen years worthwhile.

I remember feeling a spirit within that was so strong in my adolescence, that I believed in extreme and beautiful possibilities for our world. I was so convinced that once I left the small town where I grew up, I would go and do something really wonderful for humanity. It was a constant ball of energy inside, always thinking forward, the believer in possibilities. But I screwed up and lost the connection somewhere along my way. Today, I caught myself searching for that lost part; in the usual places at first – friends, plans for change in the home, a romantic comedy! And then the movie ends and reality is still unchanged. I am unchanged and yet very different from how I once was.

Where has she gone, that lover of life, the daring dreamer, the smiler of joy that many remember me to be? I wish her to return soon. I’d like very much to believe that there is more value to my life than what I have given it so far. And what, besides what we do gives a life value? Who decides? Who measures the value of a life?
I am still breathing and I like to believe that there is purpose to that. Now, to connect to what that is!

Some say there is no purpose to life. That seems both a relief from responsibility and a loss of joy.

On the sidewalk near my house someone has written on the pavement with paint, “Love is!”
Maybe I have asked the wrong questions. What is love? What is my life purpose? Perhaps these are impossible questions to answer. Love simply IS, the pathway says. Life IS. The purpose is not to be found, it is to be created in the being. “I am” is true. All words following “I Am” are experiments with the state of life. With or without love, with or without joy, my life is what it is. Life is.